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Conflict Coaching

Jeannette Twomey, JD, is an experienced Virginia-certified mediator, a conflict coach and educator. She has helped hundreds of individuals in Northern Virginia transform their approach to disagreements and disputes. Clients who engage Jeannette as a conflict coach escape the “argument culture” and discover new, constructive ways to address differences.

The nature of Jeannette’s interaction with clients is relaxed and encouraging. She works one-on-one, at the client’s comfortable pace, reflecting the familiar personal trainer model. The essence of Jeannette’s approach is to understand the client’s unique situation, help them clarify their goals, and foster new skills for accomplishing them. Jeannette has seen too many well-intended attempts to resolve conflict end prematurely because of an over-zealous win-lose mindset, unrealistic expectations, and language that arouses defensiveness. Her knowledge of negotiation and mediation can improve a client’s exchange with those who have opposing views and awaken them to the possibility of being hard on the problem – not hard on the people. Her coaching approach reflects the principles of Getting to Yes, the 1981 seminal book by Roger Fisher and William Ury.

Conflict coaching can be used in advance or during an ongoing conflict. An example of successful conflict coaching occurred a few years ago, when an individual was planning a family meeting about her parents’ aging issues that she expected to be contentious. After coaching sessions by telephone, she developed a plan for setting up the meeting, getting input on the agenda, and conducting it in manner that identified underlying concerns and resulted in progress.